The management of El-Amin University Minna,Niger State has opened strategic discussions with the university of West Bohemia aimed to enhance Research, Education, Capacity Building in the field of Social Sciences as well as Engineering.The interactios were held at the Senate building of the university on Wednesday 2nd April 2025.
Speaking to journalists afterwards, Professor Zahorik,a renowned expert on African studies, explained that his mission was to set up meaningful collaboration with El-Amin University to exchange ideas across disciplines and to also sign MOU.
Professor Zahorik disclosed that his university had earlier signed MOU with universities in Abuja,Ibadan and Lagos, before coming to El-Amin.
He said the meeting was aimed at giving opportunity to the university in the area of funding, capacity building project, research project, adding that the discussion would afford the institution another further collaboration, especially,when applying for funding
He said that the first area of interest is academic mobility so that both institutions would be meeting to be discussing on what can be done in the various disciplines, including social sciences to engineering programmes.
The Vice-Chancellor of El-Amin University Minna, Dr.E.J.Zwanbin hinted that their discussion was one of the first international collaborations entered into, pointing out that the collaboration with the West Bohemia university will increase the rating of the El-Amin university, open up the institution to funding and also give opportunity to staff to be trained abroad to acquire cutting- edge ideas on how to manage the knowledge shared with the students.
Dr.Zwanbin stated, “We hope that in the coming months, we would begin to see the results including sending our students abroad to also go and learn”, he said.
The V.C while highlighting the aims and objectives of the discussion, revealed that it centred on capacity building of the staff and in the future for training and research,and largely organize joint conferences, joint certification where the university students would obtain foreign university certificate among others.
According to him,the discussion is a broader partnership, but they are starting first with capacity building,the staff exchange and curriculum development, he added.
Also speaking, the Pro-Chancellor, El-Amin University, Mohammed Ibrahim Babangida noted that for the young university that just took off in less than two years to be in partnership with international university, is a milestone achievement worthy to be celebrated.
Mohammed pointed out that the area of collaboration is very broad, adding that in no distant time, they would begin to narrow the areas of need such as funding, research, and infrastructure, emphasizing however that academic issues will be the main focus.
Babangida’s words: “The overall benefit is very numerous because one, it put the institution in the international stage, it bench marks the institution against international practice, adding that for anybody who is coming to collaborate with our university will consider the standard that would be obtained which will give the people additional comfort and confidence. The second advantage is the research opportunities; the third advantage is the access to funding”.